


Sammy James Is On The Roof

by Bluebird Jay (Catsbearsandaneevee)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s), Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-05-15 20:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5799004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catsbearsandaneevee/pseuds/Bluebird%20Jay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The moments just before and after the suicide of a student in a school and the odd sensations that occur in these moments. As narrated by an eighth grade student on the third day of school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It

It happened the third 45 minute period on the third day of school of my eighth grade year. I sat silently as the Health teacher droned on about what to do if one of your fellow students was showing signs of depression, we’d all heard this spiel every year since fifth grade. The unfailing monotony of the first week of school had captured us all yet again this year, the teachers drone on,some with their lesson plans, some with their lessons;Tardy students are waived, school rules are barely enforced and everyone is tired and suntanned while the last of the summer cicadas drone on in the background through the open windows of the classroom.

Then, It happened, a 6th grader burst into the room panting for breath. barely managing to yell out, “Sammy James Is On The Roof!”. We all sat quietly for a brief half a second before they yelled again “He’s going to jump!”. The previous monotony was interrupted by the Health teacher making a dead sprint towards the stairs to the rooftop, seemingly forgetting the ten years he’d spent sitting behind a desk waiting for someone to relieve him of this bizarre duty of teaching students how to assume their burgeoning mental health problems would simply go away if they spoke to the counselor and exercised.

He nearly made it up to Sammy too, from what i hear. But it was too late, Death themself must have had their heart set on Sammy James jumping during third period Health on the third day of my eighth grade year because jump he did. It seemed like there was silence in that moment throughout the whole school, the kind of silence that makes cicadas scream and your heartbeat seem louder than the loudest cannon.But then that silence was replaced with an awful thud on the asphalt that lay beyond the windows of the Health room. 

In an impressive display of group behavior, it seemed that every classroom had taken this thud as a cue to lean as many students as possible out the windows to try and see what exactly had made the thud, I managed to be one of the first students to get up and look. Many students stood halfway out windows just trying to comprehend the dead body of Sammy James being splattered against the pavement, and I have no idea how students seemed to understand this thud as being something important rather than just any other loud thud you might hear on a day-to-day basis in a middle school. After staring out the window for a brief few seconds i grew uncomfortable, both with this view of a corpse and with the feeling of someone breathing down the back of my neck as they leaned over me. I felt the atmosphere shift around me, as i pulled my body back inside the classroom i turned to face my fellow students, each of them seemed to individually feel the same shift I had, and turned to each other uneasily. Slowly a low hum of conversation in the school returned, climbing to a dull roar. It wasn’t the same kind of conversation you usually heard in a middle school either, no laughter seeped through the walls and there was no disjointed scream of joy bouncing through the hallway, just a strange gripping kind of horror in people’s voices hoping to look at one another and find that nothing had really happened, that It had only been an odd wandering of the imagination. 

But It truly had happened. Nothing could deny the fact that one second Sammy James was on the roof, and the next second he wasn’t. The P.A. system rang out, dismissing students back to their homes to work out for themselves what had happened in the comfort of their own homes. Slowly students began to leave, gathering their things and pushing their way outside to climb on the buses and into cars. Some students walked uncomfortably past the now lifeless body of Sammy James.


	2. After

The next day there was no school, I imagine It had shaken the district, normally the first week of school stops for no man.The air hung heavy around my head when I sat up from my bed, pressing down heavily on my shoulders, the day before’s actions hung heavy in my memory. I very carefully sat up and got out of bed, when i looked over at my clock it read 6:30 am, i had woken up on time for the school day that wouldn’t happen. Normally something like this would seem unusual to me but it was only the would-be fourth day of school, the rhythm of the school week shouldn’t have seeped so heavily into my system yet.

I decided to go walking, still, in the sweatshirt and pajama pants i had slept in that night i walked out in the hot humid air, probably the last couple of days this kind of weather would have before Autumn finally reared its head. Out of habit I had swung my now empty backpack over my shoulder. I was uncomfortably aware of how It seemed to have affected everything in the town, in a small town like this that wasn’t a surprise, everyone is aware of everyone. Though really we all tend to keep to ourselves around here, typically staying within our 3-4 family friend groups, still the James family had been kind to all, they were one of the first families to move into the area. They had lived only a few streets away, Sammy James and I had spent quite a few summer days together when we were younger, even as we grew we were friends, it unnerved me that maybe we could have been described as best friends. Though maybe that was because he was the only person i ever chose to talk to,usually i chose to keep silent to avoid other children’s judgment, but he didn’t judge for rambling on about the feeling of one exact moment. Unconsciously I reared in the opposite direction of their house, I didn’t want to feel what kind of grief was hanging around the area.

I walked absentmindedly until 11:00 AM and found myself standing in front of the school, the sign in the front of the school was empty, there was no more awkwardly cheerful Back-To-School message, i guess they found that to be inappropriate when a student had died. I blankly stared at the place Sammy had lain only yesterday, his body had been removed and the asphalt scrubbed clean, no more remnants of blood and gore pooled around his head like a halo. I was almost upset at how quickly everything had been cleaned up, i had half expected to come face to face with a dead body. Still, my sight was fixed, I stood to stare with the knowledge that the only person I had found tolerable, maybe even liked, was dead. With that thought, i suddenly felt very heavy and very uncomfortable like perhaps Sammy himself had lain over my shoulders. In an uncharacteristic choice of actions, I decided not dwell on this instead I turned and ran.

I ran until I reached the overpass over the freeway that led to downtown, i climbed up the gravel before sitting at the top mostly hidden by the supports.I didn’t pay any attention to the gravel digging into my hands as i sat and stared blankly at the empty road before me, once in a while a car would roll past and i would flinch at the feeling of sound hitting my ears. The sound has never been my forte, silence is often my preferred companion and muse, but right now it was especially painful. It's odd, up until now I'd thought of myself as a solitary person. I had one acceptable companion and other people were noisy and annoying, even my family was often a source of irritation no matter what positive association i had with them. But, with my one acceptable companion gone what was i supposed to do? I'm no idiot, i realized a person could not truly be completely isolated, that's just not how humans are meant to live. I took climbed down from my vantage point, took a deep shuddering breath, and laid down.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is one that I'm very proud of, it's the first story I'll ever publish online, well, the first story I'll admit to writing. I'm writing it about a page at a time, maybe a little more or a little less, so it may progress slowly but never fear, each page ends in such a way that you won't ever be left with a cliffhanger, you will always get a decisive ending.A very special thanks to my friend Claire for editing this story, and thank you very much for reading.


End file.
